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Show Edgren Impressed With Sports at Camp Lewis Veteran Critic Writes of Experiences in Northwestern North-western Cantonment; Lieut. Bob Simpson Among Athletes Who Is Making a ; Name for Himself There; -Tells Edgren His Experiences. By Robert Edgren AT. CAMP LEWIS, Wash, I met Bob rllmpson. the putnt athlete In the world today, and perhaps the greatest that ever wort spiked ho. He la Lieutenant Robert I. Rlmpaon. now of tha Forty-fourth Infantry, lately commissioned from tha officers' training camp at Ft. Hherlden I' ami detailed to Camp Lewie, lie la as fine looking an officer as he was an athlete. feet I Inehee tall, straight aa an arrow; clear eyed, lithe, quick and active. It will be a fast bochs that menaces to cet out of Bob ttlmpaon a way. Lieutenant Rlmneon had Just been giving tha camp a Uttla entertainment by competing In two events of an athletic event. Ha won tha broHtl Jump with one leap, not flniing it necessary to take more, and he r."in the UI-yaTd tiuidlia In smaa, flat, equaling the world's record. This he did. too. without even a day s training, showing In whst condition a msn keeps while In one of our can-tonmenta. can-tonmenta. 1 aaked Lieutenant Blmpeon how he happened to become a world's champion h'irdler, and he explained that It was Ihingh f-'-i.'.-g - hlsh lumper. It appeets that Hob did a Utile jumping while In high school, snd npon snterlng the Unlvemlty of Mlaeourl turned out with the track team filled with an ambition ambi-tion to get over the cross bar at sis feet. hl beet up to date having lacked five Inh.. nt that helebt. I one of the nine watcheo mads ths tlms over M I-. seconds, and ths wstch held by Tommy Jones, Wisconsin coacn. showed 14 Z-S seconde. lrobahty there are many other events In which Lieutenant Simpson could brees records If he trained for them. He was la en, ml l.elm.liat Willie JUlchlaa ofs. ficer trslnlng claaees a few days sgo. Telling me shout It Willis said thst hs ran his eye down the line while the men were going through the stepe snd blows, snd was struck by the eeey and graceful ectlon of one man. He walked nearer and ' saw It was Lleutenent Simpson. He boied with Fimpenn snd found thst hs had quits a little eklll, yet It developed that Hlmpeon .i -.1 i- t-g in.. of the of here. He hsd simply fallen iu-turally iu-turally Into the action of a boser because he was a trained and experienced athlete. ath-lete. Inirtng hie military training experience the hurdle champion had no tlms far athletics. He didn't ru a hurdle race for a ( whole yeer. Hut he kept hla speed so wsll thst the first time he went out for a day'e training he twice ran the tW-yard hurdles one-fifth of a second under tne world's record. The Amerlcsn srmy snd ths American training eemps sre full of men like Robert Klmpeon not ell greet world's chsmplons and habitual record breakers, perhaps, but the beat trntntd sthletes In the country. T.d Meredith, recently writing from Franqe, aaid that on the side of tb,e allies this IS "an athlete's war." In thst caas t.ermany will havs no mors' points st the end than shs hsd artsr sny of ths Olympic meets (Copyright, 1D1I, by the Press Publishing Co., ths New York World.) Him peon jumped a little and followed hie own system of trslnlng. which consisted con-sisted of going out snd jogging sround for a mile every now and then and taking tak-ing a few practice Jumps. He had followed this system before, ' snd It had enabled him In one high sc hool meet to compete In nine different events, 1 winning eight and getting third place In the nlnlh. - One day while Blmpeon was Jumping, the college roach. "Indian" H. F. Bchulie. wented some one to trot around with the varsity hurdler, who waa hard up for a pacemaker, there being no other hurdlers In ooll.ge who could make him run fast enough to keep warm. The coach called Blmpeon over snd ssked him ss a favor to pacs ths hurdler a little way that la, ss far as he could. WHIM NOVICB SCATS CHAMPION. Blmpeon did. As hs deecrlbed It. he Jumped shout flvs feet over each hurdle and so lost Uttla ground, but hs rsn so fast between the hurdles that hs kept shssd of ths college champion and beat him to the finish litis. From that moment on Bob Blmpeon wss a hurdler. He never practiced high jumping jump-ing again. Ths roach took him In hand snd taught him sll the fins points of getting get-ting over the etlrks. and mads him a finish hurdler and tha fastest that svsr ran In a race. Simpson was twenty when ks rma his first hurdle race. "I don't think any athlete ought to try to run hurdles befors going to college, he told me, "because If you once get puur form In hurdling It's Impossible to chance Simpson's sstonlshing psrformances In ths record breaking line came nesr tns snd of his college career. Ills big year wss 111. On ths last Saturday In April that year he ran In the hurdles st ths Penn reley meet, on grsss. making a world's grsss course hurdle record of 11 second, flat. The nest Saturday, In ths University of Missouri games, st Columbia, Blmpsoa ran the high hurdles In l -5 seconns a world's record. Several other hurdlers have run In la seconds flat, but Simpson Is ths only one officially credited with beating; fifteen seconda. ---- The Saturday following that. In a dual meet between Mlaeourl and Kansas, Bob equalled ths world's record, running; the high hurdles asraln In 14 4-ft seconds. Then, two weeks later, hs piled up sensations sen-sations In ths Missouri -Valley champion-ahlp champion-ahlp meet by clipping another fifth of a second from the high hurdle record. SIM sting st-ing It 14 1-t second a He also won the low hurdles (220 yards) In world's record time, XI 1-t seconds, and won the broad Jump wltb II feet 10 Inches. THS BAST DIDN'T BSLIKVI IT. Simpson's performances were received with doubt In the Kaat, which ta always incredulous when records are made west of the Mississippi but Bob settled all dlacuaslon oy going to the conference meet at Chicago, a week later, where ne won the Weatern Intercollegiate championship cham-pionship In both hurdle races, doing; ths high hurdles In 14 t-l seconds and the low hurdles In XI 4-ft seconda. - Com in Kaat to the National championships champion-ships at Newsrk he won the hardest race of his career, making the 120 yards In 14 4-1 seconds on a loose dirt track. This was ths greatest hurdle race In history. Among; Simpson's rivals were Kelly and Murray of California and Thompson, all men who had run in lt seconds. Kelly bad oven been timed tn 14 4-4 seconds, but unofficially, as only two watches ware held on the race. 'I was scared of Kelly. aald Lieutenant Lieuten-ant St m peon, laughing. "I knew' he couttf go like a streak and I made up my mind ! to beat him to the first hurdle. I did It. too by about two Inchea I knew Kelly could run a hundred In 1 seconds flat. I and that's Just my own limit, so 1 oouMn't i let him get any advantage without nak- ir.g the loss of the race. At fifty yards I I had pulled up about -four Inches more on Kelly and had a etx-lnch lead. Then Kelly Kel-ly came up exactly sven with me, and al-I al-I thoug-h I was going- as bard aa I could 1 managed ta go a Tittle harder, and won lout." i Going to StorkholiB with sn -American team, the hurdling champion won the 110-mster hurdle race 120 yarda 2 Inches) Inch-es) in 14 4-1 seconda a world's record, snd the ISO-mrter hurdles In 26 1-6. sn-oher sn-oher record. The team went to Chrts-tlania, Chrts-tlania, where Simpson eased his long tests over the sticks for another 14 4-1 seconda This race wss run en a frosen track, and the soldiers came out with ptefca and i chopped out boles for ths runners to start from. I Seven times In that year Simpson hsd j run the high fcurdlee under 11 seconda or faster that) any other man had ever run. In the whole season of 11 he knocked down only two hurdles, which Is a remarkable re-markable thing- In Itself. I To wind up the 11 season Bob ran a few quarter-mile race a He won hie first 1 quarter In tl seconds, and after that was , good for 60 seconds any time. j ONI DAY'S WORK. His blnrest point winning day waa tn 1 the Missouri-Kansas meet, where he won the low-yard dash In 10 1 -b seconds, the 220-yard daah In 22 seconds, tha high bur- ! dies In 14 4-6 aeconda tha low hurdles In j 24 1-6 seconds, the broad Jump at Zl feet 1-4 Inches, and ran In the relay. 1 When he ran the high hurdles In 14 1-6 . at the W astern conference meet nine j watches were held en the event, five oift- j clal and four unofficial. Of the five off I- eial watches three eaugrht him In 14 1-6 , seconds, and two la 14 l- s a nan da Net j |
